LAST EDITED ON Apr-18-16 AT 01:08 AM (EDT)
 
>>Last year, Red Bull (an F1 constructor that is also a soft drink
>>company and otherwise does not make cars) got so fed up with their
>>engine provider, Renault, that they announced midway through the
>>season that they were going to drop them and find somebody else for
>>this year.
>>
>>They then failed to find anyone else for this year, on account of all
>>the other engine providers in the sport declined to sell them any
>>engines.
>
>Now, I only follow Formula 1 like one year out of every five, but
>isn't Red Bull's other Formula 1 team powered by Ferrari? Would
>Ferrari just... not sell them more engines for their marquee team?

That is correct! For the same reason why Mercedes-Benz wouldn't. Scuderia Toro Rosso is not a threat to the top-echelon teams; they're running outdated hardware, essentially last year's Red Bull (with last year's Ferrari engine), in any given season, and their two drivers have a combined age of about 12. They're a farm team, AAA ball, grooming drivers for the main show. Power unit troubles the last couple of years notwithstanding, Red Bull Racing still have Adrian Newey developing their chassis and Daniel Ricciardo driving one of their cars. Nobody who is trying to operate a top-level team is willingly going to turn around and sell engines (even outdated ones) to that. It'd be like the Germans air-dropping ammo and food to the Allied troops holed up in Bastogne.

As it happens, this year Renault is trying to make a go of it with a works team again as well (having bought out Team Lotus over the off-season), but they're not realistically in top-level contention like M-B and Ferrari, and frankly they need the money more than either of those two companies do. In their case it was mostly just a question of wounded pride, hence the weird sleight of hand with Tag Heuer.

For a while it looked like VW was going to swoop in and save the day by jumping in as an engine provider, if not a full-on constructor this year; but then, well, that thing that caused a bunch of executives at VW to get fired and the company to lose a whole fuckton of money happened, and the idea kind of quietly went away. And Honda won't sell to anyone other than McLaren at the moment; besides which, until a couple of weeks ago, the idea that anyone else would actually want Honda's power unit was laughable, given how much the new engine rules made certain their offering sucked last year.

F1 is kind of a nightmare in the Hybrid Era; I'm not sure why I still watch it. It's sort of reached that point where you've come to dislike the show but you're too invested in the characters and you can't quite bring yourself to delete the SP off your TiVo.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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